Authorities in Social Circle are investigating a body found late last night. According to Social Circle director of public safety Tom Fox, a 911 call placed at 11:44 p.m. reported seeing a fire being started in the woods off exit 101 off Interstate 20 and Ga. Hwy. 278. According to Fox, firefighters responded to the blaze and discovered a black male, possible in his 30s.

In the wake of ever-increasing diesel and gasoline prices, Covington officials continue to warm to the idea of building a compressed natural gas fueling facility that would be available to the city and public.

Ricky Lewis Smith, 46, of Covington was found guilty of the shooting death of a woman last Wednesday by a Newton County jury.

He was found guilty of malice murder, felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of possession of firearms during the commission of a felony and possession of firearm by convicted felon.

Charges have been filed in the 2011 crash that injured several and killed one Newton County woman, 78-year-old Sarah Belcher.

Ricky Todd Guice, 39, is charged with vehicular homicide, DUI and improper lane usage in the August crash. According to Georgia State Patrol spokesman Gordy Wright, around 5 p.m. on Ga. Highway 162, Guice, who was driving a 2005 Ford pickup, crossed the centerline in a curve and struck a 1998 Prizm in the side, then struck a Dodge Neon in the front bumper. Belcher, the driver of the Neon, was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center where she later ...

A woman called Newton County police on herself insisting that she had violated her probation by drinking alcohol.

When the responding deputy radioed her identification through dispatch, it showed that the woman was not on active probation. When the deputy informed her that she was not on probation, the woman became agitated and proclaimed even louder that she was indeed on probation and insisted that she needed to be taken to jail.

A Newton County man was taken into custody last Saturday after he peed on a taxicab and exposed himself to the taxi driver.

According to the taxi driver, the man got into the cab and complained that he had to urinate. The taxi driver instructed him to go back in the bar to relieve himself. However, the man exited the cab and proceeded to pee on the back, driver-side tire and quarter panel of the car.